Anise's Amazing Alphabet Adventure
by Jenna Wilder
Summary: Crack, pure and simple. Anise is bored, so Luke and Tear send her on a quest with a monetary reward at the end. How can she refuse?


**A/N: Crack-ish fanfic. I was playing around with alliteration and the Abyss Alphabet immediately came to mind. My brother helped me with some of the words, and I gave up on the X's, so... yeah. We argued over this a bit. Yulia's last name _is _Jue, right? And I can't remember if Jade's a certified doctor. I don't think he is (a medical one, anyways), but my brother does. XD Oh well. Enjoy.  
**

**I don't own anything from TotA. Wish I did. But I don't.**

**---  
**

The tree was large, leafy, and comfortingly sturdy, a perfect hiding place for a short thirteen-year-old girl to hide in and spy on her companions.

Unfortunately, it was also swarming with a veritable army of ants. Anise screamed and fell out of her perch in the tree, falling smack into Luke's lap. Neither Luke nor Tear seemed especially pleased with this sudden change in the scenery; she grinned unashamedly and tried to snuggle closer until Luke knocked her off onto the ground.

"Anise, what in Yulia's name are you _doing_?" the redhead demanded, brushing ants off his knees and glaring at her simultaneously.

"Spying on you, what's it look like? Meanie." She stuck her tongue out at him, ignoring his irritated groan. Her rear was sore from landing on the pavement near the bench that her two targets were seated on, and she didn't really care that he was annoyed. It was his fault for sneaking off with Tear!

"Go away, Anise. We're busy," Luke warned.

"Booooo. You're mean. Besides, I'm bored!" she retaliated, sitting on the bench between them. "Natalia won't play with me, Jade's locked up in his room reading something, and Guy's off with Noelle restocking supplies on the Albiore. I'm just cute little me, lonely and miserable until someone feels sympathetic enough to entertain me."

He didn't seem impressed with her speech _or_ her puppy eyes. Darn.

"Anise, why don't you go on an alphabet hunt?" Tear said after a moment in which Luke and Anise tried to glare each other down.

"What's that? Sounds _boring_."

"You think of three things that start with each letter of the alphabet," the melodist replied patiently, taking a piece of lined paper out of her backpack and handing it over.

Anise took it and glared at the pristine bit of tree in her hand. "I still say it sounds boring – "

"Tell you what. I'll pay you 100 Gald for every word you add to the paper, and an extra 10,000 if you fill out the whole thing. No more than three per letter, though, and try to stick with relevant stuff." Luke grumbled after a moment.

100 x 3 x 26 + 10,000…

17,800 Gald.

"From now on, you can call me **Anise: Letter Hunter Extraordinaire**!" she called back over her shoulder, already running back to her room in Grand Chokmah's inn to grab a pencil.

---

"Let's see. A is easy… Anise, Asch, Albiore," she muttered to herself, pausing long enough to write down the words with the sparkly purple pencil she had dug out of her pack after five minutes' worth of hunting. "B… Badaq, Balfour, Baticul. C is, um… Cheagle, Chesedonia, and… um…"

"What are you doing?" Natalia asked, sitting in the chair next to her and looking over her shoulder with interest.

"I'm on an alphabet hunt," Anise answered absentmindedly. "Luke's paying me. Go away unless you can think of another C."

"How about… Choral Castle?" the princess suggested, tapping a finger on her chin and looking thoughtful.

"Perfect. Thank you. Go away."

The blonde hmph-ed, folding her arms across her chest and sitting back in the chair with an angry look. "That's no way to say thank you. Or to talk to a princess, for that matter."

Anise looked up from her paper, biting the end of the pencil. "Sorry. Please go away, your highness. Unless you know any good D's to add."

"Try 'demanding'." Natalia said grouchily, sliding deeper into her chair.

---

Pencil in hand, Anise dashed from the inn to the dock where she could see the Albiore preparing for a landing. She waited impatiently for Guy and Noelle to disembark with their packages – normally, she would have attacked Guy with a hug, trying to knock him off the dock into the water below, but this time was different. He might know words that she didn't, and she didn't think he'd be very inclined to help if she scared him half to death by taking advantage of his gynophobia.

"Oh, Count Gailardia!" she said cheerfully, settling herself in between him and Noelle. "I need _good_ words that start with F for my alphabet hunt!"

"Fontech," Guy said immediately, inching away from her with a disturbed look.

"That's so like you," she sighed, writing it down anyways. "I already have Florian and Frings, so that's done. Moving on! G is easy, too. Guy, Ginji… and Gloomietta."

"What are you doing this for?" Noelle asked at the mention of her brother, trying to switch places with her so that she was closer to Guy. For some reason, the swordsman didn't react to her like he did to other girls, and Anise would have found it annoying if she hadn't been so preoccupied with earning her 17,800 Gald.

"Luke's paying me. Will you help? Think of it as… charity. To a poor-but-adorable little girl who only wants to help her parents."

The two jumpsuit-garbed blondes traded confused, slightly skeptical glances over her head. "Yeah. _Right_."

---

"Hey, Colonel! Open up and let me in!" Anise called, hammering on the door with the hand that didn't hold the pencil. "I need to talk to you! It's urgent! _Really_ urgent!"

"Oh, my. What has you so excited, little Anise?" The door cracked open, and Jade peeked out cautiously. Anise stamped ruthlessly on the idea of grabbing the door handle and smacking the door closed on his face – while she would giggle endlessly over the Colonel's masked outrage, it was unlikely that he'd help her after that, and she really needed that Gald.

"Luke is paying me to find words that correspond to the letters of the alphabet. I need two more X-words, and all I've got is x-ray, for the medical lab in Belkend," she explained, doing her best to sound miserably needy. Not that the Necromancer would feel anything differently than he did if she said it normally, but it certainly made _her_ feel better about begging him for help.

"Xenophobic and xepher," he responded after a moment of thought. "Don't ask me what the second one is, though, because I'm afraid I don't know. Is there anything else you need, or may I return to my book?"

Anise made a noise of annoyance, having to stamp harder than ever on the idea of hitting him with the door. "No, that's all. Go back to reading, if you're happy holed up in some stuffy room with a bunch of boring books. What are you reading, anyways?"

Jade smoothed his uniform and picked up a book, holding it out so that she could read the title. "It's a book that deals with using sound as a weapon; while it's a bit… outdated, there are some ideas in here that Malkuth should consider developing further. A sonic rifle could be quite the formidable weapon, if properly used."

"Yeah, okay, I get it. It's boring," sighed Anise, reaching for another book resting on his desk. He smacked her hand with his, and she jerked it away looking wounded. "Colonel! How could you strike a woman so cruelly?"

"For one, you're not a woman yet," the man remarked, adjusting his glasses with a smile and being irritatingly _casual_ about the whole thing. "And it was barely more than a tap. If you want to read it, you should ask first."

"_Fine_. Colonel, could I look at that book, pretty please with sprinkles and a cherry?" If she was going to do it, she was going to go the whole way. After all, if Peony could fall for it, so could Jade. In theory, anyways.

"Certainly. Here you are." The cover was worn and faded, but she could make out a faintly-written name at the bottom. Whoever this 'Sage' was, his – her? – book hadn't lasted very well. It felt like an expensive copy, hard-backed and once-colorfully adorned with a bright image of a beautiful blue-skinned woman. She looked… transparent, almost, and staring at her too long gave the illusion of liquid movement.

"A monster guide? Oh well. I'll come back and read it later. Right now, I've got to go back to letter-hunting." She set the book down and tapped it with her pencil, smiling sweetly. "Save it for me, would you, Colonel?"

---

"Luke! Oh, Luke! I'm done!" Anise shouted, waving the piece of paper indiscriminately and running through the wide, paved streets of Grand Chokmah. She finally caught up to him as he ducked behind a nearby building, dragging Tear along with him. "Where are you going?"

"We're avoiding you," he growled finally as she practically shoved the paper in his face. "I guess I have to pay you, then. Lemme see what you got." She handed it to him gladly, nearly dancing with joy as he skimmed over the list of words. That Gald was nearly hers!

_A: Anise, Asch, Albiore_

"You added your own name? Why not Auldrant or something like that?"

"It's _my_ quest, not yours!"

_B: Badaq, Balfour, Baticul_

_C: Cheagle, Chesedonia, Choral Castle_

_D: Dist, Daath, Dark Wings_

_E: Engeve, Explosion, Eldrant_

"Explosion? I think that's cheating."

"It's one of the Colonel's artes! Ask him!"

_F: Florian, Frings, Fontech_

_G: Guy, Ginji, Gloomietta_

"Gloomietta isn't even her name."

"Fine, Gald then. Are you happy?"

_H: Hod, hymn, hauberk_

"Hauberk? How is _that_ relevant?

"_You_ try thinking of another H, then!"

_I: Ion, Ispanian, Iemon_

_J: Jade, Jewel of Lorelei, Jue_

"What's a Jue?"

"That's Yulia's last name, stupid."

_K: Keterburg, Kaitzur, Katz_

_L: Luke, Legretta, Largo_

"Largo's in here twice, I don't think that's fair…"

"But Largo and Badaq were like two different people!"

_M: Mieu, Malkuth, Mount Roneal_

_N: Noelle, Natalia, Noir_

"You put a Dark Wing in here?"

"Three of 'em, actually. Keep going!"

_O: Oliver, Oracle Knights, Order of Lorelei_

_P: Pamela, Peony, passage ring_

_Q: Qliphoth, queen, quack doctor_

"Quack doctor? What the _heck_?"

"That's the Colonel in his doctor costume. He's not a licensed doctor, so he's a quack."

_R: Remday, rappig, replica_

_S: Sheridan, Shurrey Hill, Sync_

_T: Tokunaga, Tear, Tatlin_

"You put yourself in again!"

"So? Who cares? It's a name."

_U: Urushi, uniform, Unicerous_

_V: Van, violent, vision_

"Vision?"

"The Score. Prophesy, vision – it's all the same, isn't it?"

_W: Wings, Wild, warm_

"Why is 'Wild' even in here?"

"That's Gloomietta, remember?"

"Oh, right. And… 'warm'?"

"Remember being in Mount Zaleho?"

_X: X-ray, xenophobic, xepher_

"I think all of these are invalid. What do these have to do with anything?"

"Boooo! Meanie! What do you know?"

_Y: York, Yulia, yell_

"Yell?"

"What Natalia does all the time."

_Z: Zao Ruins, Zaleho, Zed_

"And what the heck does Zed have anything to do with anything?"

"It's another way to say Z, and that's relevant because it's the last letter of the alphabet and now I'm done! Pay up!"

Luke dug reluctantly through his pocket for his wallet and took out the money he owed her, holding it high above her head with a teasing grin. "I want you to promise to leave me and Tear alone, okay? I'll even throw in an extra thousand Gald."

"Can I go bother Guy and Noelle, then?" she asked, eyeing the handful of cash.

"Sure. Be my guest. Ow, Tear! What'd you hit me for?"

"Luke, that was unkind. Guy and Noelle are looking for peace and quiet, too," Tear scolded.

"Fine, whatever. Anise, go bother Jade instead. Here's your money."

She stuffed it in her pocket, grinning widely. "Thanks, Luke! And now, Anise: Letter Hunter Extraordinaire is off to bother the Necromancer for whatever money he has on him!"

Feeling that the few hours' effort had been well worth the reward, Anise bounced off happily in the direction of Jade's study. It was time to get revenge for that smack.

---

**A/N: Aaaaand, I also need to stop doing cameos. XD There's a tiny Baten Kaitos one (Lyude wields a sonic rifle) and a bigger Tales of Symphonia one that I seem to stick in every other story. .:sweatdrop:. Raine's monster guide. Oh well. Hope you liked it. R&R, please!**

**Oh yeah! And, I should probably mention this, but I'm hooked on Guy x Noelle now. Just because he's gynophobic doesn't mean he's gay, all you yaoi fans. (end rant)  
**


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